Late that evening the train arrived at
Carlisle where everbody had to disembark. Once more we
had to hump our kit in complete darkness. I had heard of
darkness visible, but everything seemed invisible. In
wartime soldiers en route to other places carried a
kitbag of clothing, a rifle and bayonet and had a
respirator - or gas mask - slung over the shoulder. The
members of the RAF were loaded similarly but without
rifle and bayonet. The women members of the forces
travelled somewhat the same as the R.A.F. The Good Lord
once said to an ailing person: "Take up thy bed and
walk." We matelots, when transferring from place to
place, ship to ship, had to do exactly the same, so that
we carried a respirator, a kitbag, hammock and suitcase.
Don’t ask me how. In normal times a couple of bodies
would be told off to purloin a large station trolley with
which to move the kit, but in wartime blackout this
turned out to be a pantomime. "Porters?" I hear
you query. All called up or invisible. Anyhow, Scants and
I had to find a certain platform for onward passage to
Plymouth North Road Station. One of us sat on the kit,
the other wandered off into the darkness. Having found
the platform, we discovered several other service men and
women en route to Plymouth, so a baggage train was formed
and we all mucked in to guard and transport the kit. As
usual the next train for Plymouth would leave in the
early hours of the morning, so there were several hours
of waiting. But, wonder of wonders, in the waiting room a
number of camp beds were set up. Members of the
Women’s Voluntary Service had set up a routine so
forces travellers could rest on camp beds and arranged to
call them when their train was due. These volunteers
provided a mug of hot tea for each traveller upon being
awakened. Then it was a case of lumping kit into a
luggage wagon, before travelling to Plymouth. This time
we did manage to find seats in a compartment and stow our
kit on the luggage racks, lending our suitcases to a
couple of soldiers in the corridor. The compartment in
which Scants and I travelled was the end one in the
carriage, so we didn’t have too much hassle when
doing a toilet ranger stint. Much, much later the train
arrived at North Road Station, again in the blackout, but
on the platform was a member of the good old Salvation
Army, serving mugs of tea, which were of course most
welcome.
Transport, in the form of a lorry,
finally arrived to take a group of us to the Naval
Barracks, arriving at about dawn, sometime in June 1940.
The usual joining barracks routine followed - medical and
dental check-ups. Ratings joining barracks were eagerly
pounced upon by the "Poultice Wallopers" to
examine Pay and Identity Books in a hope that the
recipient was due for a vaccination or top-up
innoculation against the many infections one could
collect when away from their tender care. The number of
brawny, sun-bronzed, tattooed matelots who would collapse
like a ton of bricks when facing an injecting needle was
amazing. I have seen hairy Chiefs sitting on chairs
before injections; it was a case of sit down or fall
down. Wait until I write about the injection caper when
in Germany! After stowing our kit and completing the
joining routine - no injections today, Mum - Scants and I
went to breakfast. Then we had to report to the
Stokers’ Regulating Office to officially become a
Barracks Stanchion - that is, somebody who worked hard at
avoiding work. But fate had other plans for us. We were
told to report to the Drafting Office, which meant that
our orders for onward despatch to Coastal Forces had
preceeded us.
What follows takes some beating. Doug
Scantlebury lived somewhere in Newcastle; I lived in
Devonport. My draft orders were for a boat being built on
the Gareloch in Scotland, at a small boatbuilding yard
called Clynder, opposite Helensburgh. Doug’s draft
order was for Mashford’s boatyard at Cremyll on the
Tamar, a ferry-ride across the river from Stonehouse.
Scants couldn’t hope to get a long weekend from
Cremyll to travel to Newcastle. I couldn’t hope to
get one from Helensburgh to travel to Plymouth. So there
was only one logical course of action: see the Drafting
Commander to swop drafts. We were equal in proficiency,
being First Class Stokers possessing Auxiliary
Watchkeeping Certificates, so there was no way we could
upset the apple cart if we swopped drafts. We knew it
would be all right; the Drafting Chief Stoker could see
no objections and gave his blessing, so we reported to
the Drafting Commander with high hopes. BUT we had
forgotten one of the Engine Room pearls of wisdom, put
together by sages over years of blood, tears and sweat:
"Blessed are they who expecteth nothing, for they
are never disappointed." The Drafting Commander
listened to our requests, showed a lot of interest and
then turned down the requests. "Not Granted"
and proceded to prove to us how Britain could lose the
war if our requests were granted. We had been chosen to
make up crews with specialists from other branches,
carefully vetted and that was that. "Blessed are
they."
I joined H.M.S. Centurion, a
very old battleship, as holed as a collander. For years
she had acted as a target for the big ships’ shoots;
normal bulkheads and passage-ways did not exist. Finding
one’s way about that hulk was strange to say the
least; the massive holes in the decks and through the
bulkheads gave me a vivid image of what the victor in a
battle at sea could look like. On the Centurion
I did some training courses ready for service in Coastal
Forces. Doug Scantlebury and I parted and we have never
met since then. I wonder how he fared.
Upon completion of the courses I
rejoined Barracks, ready for the journey to Clynder.
Draft routine once again: medical and dental inspections,
then kit inspection, where I met the remainder of the
ratings who were to make up the crew. In the course of
standing by the boat whilst under construction, several
changes in the crew took place before we finally took to
the water, so I will name those who finally went to the
Mediterranean. Bill Sams, the telegraphist - more about
Bill later. Syd Pownall, an Ordinary Seaman who, because
he was the youngest, was automatically called
"Wings". Being an O.D., he was to a certain
extent still under instruction from the Coxswain’s
"Winger". In the Barracks, ratings came and
went on a special train which left from the
Barrack’s railway platform. Thus, on our day of
departure, we mustered in the Drill Shed, together with a
large number of others travelling to various
destinations. Our kits were taken to be loaded in the
goods wagon. Each was issued with the proverbial
Pusser’s Bag Meal and, carrying our oilskin coats,
respirators slung over left shoulders, we marched to the
Barracks Station and entrained. The Coxswain of our crew,
a Leading Seaman, held our draft note. We were to change
trains at Crewe, which reminds me of an old music hall
ballad which begins thus:
"Oh, Mr. Porter, what
shall I do?
I wanted to go to Birmingham
And they’ve put me off at Crewe."
Crewe Station was the intersection
point for anywhere. Our crowd had managed to bag a
compartment; bag meals, oilskin coats and respirators
were stowed on the luggage racks and nine of us fitted
happily into seats for eight. The corridors were empty,
so there weren’t any members of the women’s
forces against which one could squeeze en route to the
lavatory, just the Naval Patrol whose job it was to
quietly meander along the corridor, keeping "Good
Order and Naval Discipline" and seeing that no
gambling was taking place.
Other than at Fleet Regattas and
organised games of Tombola, or Bingo, no forms of
gambling were allowed and severe punishments were handed
out to any miscreants so apprehended. In spite of this a
popular gambling game called ‘Crown and Anchor’
often appeared, but this, played with special dice,
required look-outs to be posted. The rattle of the dice
in a leather cup and the enthusiasm of the players needed
observers to warn of the silent approach of the Crushers
and Jaunties. Some of these people had a standing job to
ride on the troop trains. What a war! How they must have
suffered!
On arrival at Crewe we detrained,
claimed our kit and the Coxswain set off to find further
information about onward travel. In war-time all major
stations sported an R.T.O. I suppose those initials stood
for Royal or Railway Transport Office, or something, but
all forces travellers knew it as R.T.O. From here one was
supposed to gain information about onward movements.
Thankfully at Crewe Station there was a large room
containing camp beds, so if the next train left in the
distant hours a bed could be booked, a timely awakening
arranged, together with a cuppa from the W.V.S. or the
Salvation Army. We were able to bed down together; the
Coxswain had the responsibility of arranging the shakes;
that is what he was paid for. Sometimes the hook on the
arm can become very heavy! So, being wakened in the early
hours, we manhandled the kits onto the relevant train and
journeyed onward, ever onward to Helensburgh, crossing
the Gareloch to arrive at Clynder.
Apparently we were not expected just
then; there was a problem about accomodation and
victualling. The best that could be offered was the upper
floor of a loft - a not too clean floor at that. We
begged brushes from the boat builder, had a good sweep
out and sort of settled in, making the best of it for the
time. There were no fittings for slinging hammocks so we
bedded down on the floor; hammocks are not very
comfortable as beds in such a cramped situation. Here I
met my immediate boss. He was a P.O. Motor Mechanic
called Tommy Andrews and we hit it off well right from
the start. He was a Scot and I believe he lived in or
near Glasgow.
We were at Clynder to stand by the
construction of a seventy two feet Motor Launch. It would
be equipped with Asdic gear, depth charges and a gun and
be powered by two Glennifer diesel engines, which became
the responsibility of Tommy Andrews and myself. There
were now eight of us living and sleeping in the loft and
conditions became bad. We had to use the toilets in the
boat builder’s yard and these were nothing to shout
about; domestic and laundry arrangements were primitive.
Our Commanding Officer arrived, a Lieutenant Cooksey
R.N.V.R.; he was able to arrange accomodation for us in a
hospital ship in Gareloch. Here we were able to revert to
normal Naval life. Unfortunately those enjoyable
conditions did not last very long and with the ship due
to sail the question of accomodation arose again. Because
we were the first crew to arrive at Clynder the question
had not arisen, but the need for billeting was evident.
Eventually four of us were billeted with a Mr. and Mrs.
Carson in comfortable if cramped conditions. There was
already a young shipwright apprentice from the boatyard
living with the Carsons and he was overjoyed to have us
as brothers, people with whom he could converse in the
evenings - and in the evenings there was not much else to
do.
His Majesty’s Motor Launch
1030
was nearing completion, so the P.O. and I began
familiarising ourselves with the engine room layout and
prevailing upon the workmen for extra storage space for
the spare gear which kept arriving daily. The launch was
to be self-contained and there was ample provision for
fuel and water. Six of us ratings would live in the bows,
the P.O. and the coxswain shared a cabin; the skipper and
the sub-lieutenant shared another. Space would be at a
premium, but then we weren’t on the Queen Mary.
The skipper prevailed upon a well-known actress of the
day to launch the 1030, and so began the
acceptance trials which went on for many days. One of the
two Asdic ratings had done a cookery course of sorts and
there was a coal-fired bogey in our fo’c’sle
mess-deck on which a large black kettle steamed
endlessly, always ready for making ‘char’.
Besides the two diesel engines for main propulsion, there
was a smaller ‘donkey’ diesel engine, a maid of
all work which drove a generator to supply power; it also
could supply sea water under pressure for fire-fighting
and flushing the toilets and, most important of all to
Tommy and me, compressed air, essential for starting the
main engines. In the engine room there was manually
operated pump to compress air into the high-pressure air
bottles, in case the ‘donkey’ engine became
defective. Pumping manually became my job if ever this
happened. I tried it once, just for the experience and
then studied the maintenance manual of the
‘donkey’ engine until I knew it inside out.
When hand pumping, the hand on the bottle pressure gauge
hardly ever seemed to move and, thank goodness, that
‘donkey’ engine never gave a moment’s
trouble.
Familiarisation drills took place so
that in an emergency departments could take over other
jobs; the sub-lieutenant, second-in-command, called
‘Jimmy The One’ or ‘Number One’
decided that I should become the emergency gunner, so I
had to learn to fire the three-pounder gun. At least my
rounds hit the water! Then he suggested that he could be
useful in the engine room while I was on the gun. Tommy
Andrews pondered what to give Jimmy The One to do to keep
him busy and out of harm’s way. There was only one
answer, seeing he was so enthusiastic - to pump up the
air bottles by hand. He soon lost his enthusiasm, and I
can understand why! Trials continued day and night,
sometimes working with submarines giving the Asdic
ratings plenty of experience; we had to be able to
provide immediate top speed when depth charges were
dropped, otherwise the explosion could take away the
stern of the launch. Those explosions underwater sent
hair-raising sounds to us in the engine room and often
resulted in a good supply of dead fish!
Christmas 1940 was drawing near and,
although hoped for, there was no chance of leave. We were
told that 1030 was designated to join a flotilla
for service in the Mediterranean, leaving early in the
New Year of 1941. Lieutenant Cooksey, the skipper,
arranged with the local hotel at Clynder to supply us
with our Christmas dinner and Christmas Day turned out to
be cold, dry and clear. Towards tot time, when the issue
of rum appeared, the skipper said he would give a bottle
of whisky to any member of the crew who would swim around
the launch, fully expecting to find no takers. Like an
idiot I stripped off to my underpants, dived off the
stern, swam around the ship and climbed back onboard.
That water was cold and my tot of rum went down a treat.
The Christmas dinners were delivered; there was a small
bird for each person together with the usual vegetables,
and a grand meal it was. That evening the skipper sent
for me to give me the bottle of whisky, which the eight
of us shared. Up to then I had never drunk whisky and I
wished I had never started. At about midnight I felt ill
and my only relief was to go and sit on the bollard on
the fo’c’sle, gulping in all the cold air I
could find. I was ‘proper poorly’, my inside
seemed to be filled with burnt toast and I stayed most of
the night at the bows. Whisky I cannot drink, no matter
what is used to mix with it. I fell asleep on the deck
and awoke feeling freezing cold, with a horrible taste in
my throat. I went below, boiled up the black kettle and
made some tea, taking some to everybody. I couldn’t
sleep so why should they?
After the Christmas break we continued
with exercises and Bill Sams, the telegraphist, received
a signal from Admiralty for the skipper. Orders had
arrived for 1030 to be in Cardiff at a certain
date in January 1941. HM ML 1030 returned to the
boatyard in Clynder for some last minute modifications,
good-byes and good wishes were said to the friends we had
made - after all we were something special, being the
first crew to arrive there - and on a late December day
we set off for Cardiff. Mistakenly thinking we were on a
cruise down the west coast, we were buzzed by aircraft
and challenged by other ships; Bill Sams was fully
occupied signalling out the correct codes for the day. To
cap it all, the elements decided to join in and a real
storm arose. 1030 proved her sea-worthiness
then. She pitched and rolled all over the
‘oggin’ and the storm became so bad that the
skipper ordered slow ahead on the engine room telegraphs
and we just held way against the south-westerly gale.
Bill Sams was ordered to send a signal that we could not
make the E.T.A. at Cardiff and the skipper was ordered to
make for Peel in the Isle of Man. So we arrived at Peel
early on New Year’s Day 1941. Once secured in
harbour 1030 was made shipshape again. The bogey
was lit and a brew-up organised. The cook - I nearly
wrote the ‘chef’ - prepared breakfast and we
waited for the worst of the storm to blow itself out.
Many weeks had passed since I had had a
haircut, my customary short back and sides had worn off,
so I requested to be allowed to go ashore for a haircut.
The skipper granted the request and off I went into Peel
to find a barber’s shop. January 1st in
Peel in 1941 saw every business closed and I wandered
through some lonely streets. Everybody must have been
sleeping off the effects of seeing the New Year in. At
last I saw the familiar sight of a red and white
candy-striped barber’s pole sticking out at an angle
from what appeared to be a private house with a large bay
window. The front door was open so up the four or five
steps I went, into the entrance passage and turned right
into the large front room, which was obviously the
barber’s shop. I took my cap off, put it on a hook
and sat on the box seat in the bay window. I passed the
time leafing through some back editions of the old
magazines usually found in any barber’s shop. There
was no sign of life, so I called rather loudly: "Is
anyone at home?" No answer, so I went to the foot of
the stairs and called loudly once more. I went back into
the shop and soon there was the noise of somebody on the
stairs, then into the shop came the barber. He must have
been annoyed at being disturbed, but when he saw me in
uniform he seemed rather flabbergasted and asked me what
I wanted. Being in a barber’s shop with hair rather
longer than was expected from a service man, the reason
seemed rather obvious, but I answered: "I’d
like a haircut, please." And this is where the
pantomime began. When he heard my request he became
agitated, accompanied by: "No, no, no." For a
moment I couldn’t understand what all this was in
aid of, so I sat in the chair ready for him to begin
work. Again there was a "No, no, no," and he
rushed out of the room; I heard him calling to somebody
upstairs. This was his wife and together they came into
the room. Seeing me sitting in the chair they both began
saying: "No, no, no." They told me that barbers
never cut hair on New Year’s Day, as terrible bad
luck would follow for the person who had the haircut.
They were adamant: cutting the hair would cut off the
customer’s good luck. Fool that I was, and not
believing in their superstitions, I prevailed upon him to
cut my hair. The wife declared she wouldn’t stay to
witness such an act; the barber warned me once again but
at last consented, saying that he would accept no money
and that, being a service man, I should know better. When
he had cut my hair and brushed my shoulders, together
with his wife he came to the door of the house and shook
hands, the wife hugged me and wished me well with good
luck for the New Year. I should have listened to them and
foregone the haircut on New Year’s Day 1941 - as May
26th 1941 would show.
When the gale abated we got under way,
arrived at the entrance to Cardiff Docks and proceeded to
our berth. The launch met up with the other two launches
to form a flotilla for coastal defence in the
Mediterranean. Just as we had unpacked spare gear and
carefully stowed it when we took over 1030, so
the spares had to be repacked carefully for the long
voyage via Capetown, South Africa. The launches were to
be transported on a merchant ship, which meant that the
engines had to be put in a state of preservation, the
high pressure air bottles emptied and all loose gear in
the engine room secured. The fuel and water tanks were
emptied, bilges pumped empty and the donkey engine put
into preservation. The remainder of the crew were putting
their respective parts of the ship into preservation, the
coxswain was responsible for the de-storing routine and
came a day when members of the Port Admiral’s shore
staff carried out a rigid examination of the launch to
ensure she was ready for transportation. Then it was a
case of up bags, hammocks and suitcases again and make
for the railway station to H.M.S. Drake, i.e.
Devonport Barracks once more.
Because we were going on Foreign
Service the ‘joining barracks’ routine had to
be carried out. First to the Medical Officer for a good
medical examination and a couple of injections because we
were going to "them ther’ foreign places".
Be sure that the notifications of these were stamped in
the Pay and Identity Book, otherwise some zealous
Poultice Walloper would want to show his skill. A visit
to the Dental Office and a "sit in that chair".
Memories, memories. Another good examination, probing
with that awful pointed piece of steel, but all was well
and the Pay Book was duly stamped. Then to the
Stokers’ Regulating Office, where they didn’t
want to know me; I was on foreign draft; stow your kit in
the special store allocated to ratings going on foreign
service, collect a leave pass and a fortnight’s pay,
purchase the regulation tin of tickler’s tobacco for
going on leave and proceed on fourteen days leave. Those
ratings living far from the port area were given railway
travel warrants: me, I just hopped on a bus.
Father was still a member of the Police
War Reserve, engaged in normal police duties; by this
time regular policemen were being called to serve in the
forces. My cousin, Dick Harvey, a one-time member of the
Navy had bought himself out of the service and became a
policeman. One condition of purchasing oneself out of the
Navy was that one automatically became a member of the
Royal Naval Reserve. Thus at the outbreak of war Richard
Harvey RNVR found himself rapidly back in the Navy for
the duration. Being a policeman, he returned to the Navy
as an R.P.O. or ‘Crusher’, and later you will
read how I met him in R.N. Barracks.
Naturally I went to see Grandma, who
wanted to know what had been happening to me. When I told
her about the episode on New Year’s Day she became
quite concerned, repeating that she had lost a son in the
last war and didn’t want to lose a grandson in this
war. I was reminded that as I was the last of the
Siddalls in the family I should marry Mabel, just in
case, so that there could be another member of the
family. She said something that touched me deeply:
"I would always have helped you out for your
Mother’s sake." Marrying in war-time was the
last thing I thought about. Two fit and healthy people,
marrying and living together come what may, is alright,
but being married with a short life of bliss and then
returning from war physically or mentally unfit could put
a blight on any future happiness, which was something I
would not contemplate. Remember when I wrote about seeing
two survivors from H.M.S. Glorious, one of them
suffering from the effects of badly frozen feet; it was
touch and go whether the feet would be amputated.
Mabel was on shift work in the Civil
Defence, so we were meeting at different intervals. I was
conscripted into the darts team again and I visited
Grandma frequently. It was in one of our sessions
together, talking about the family and the war that I
learned again about the episode of being upside down in
her arms. She was now blind and as we laughed about the
incident she said: "I must have been blind
then." It is amazing that, from all the
conversations people have, certain snatches are
remembered
And so leave ended, as all leaves did,
and I returned to Barracks. One day I met a member of the
Stokers’ Regulating Office staff; he was from the Repulse.
Apparently those in the office were nosing through my
service certificates prior to forwarding them to my next
depot and discovered I had enough seniority to be put on
the next Leading Stoker’s course and that I should
apply. I don’t know, reader, whether you have ever
had a hunch to decline something, but at the moment of
speaking with this office wallah something stopped me
from going to the office. Had I gone I could possibly
have been taken off the foreign service draft, spent many
months at Engineering School and from there gone on to an
Advanced Engineering course, to finish up as my cousin,
Charlie Stephens. But that something, that hunch, held me
back. Had I taken that step, would I have been here
today? I could have eventually gone back to sea and
finished up fifty fathoms deep. Que sera!
With the rest of the crew I waited in
the Barracks until a train was assembled and we were once
more mustered in the Drill Shed with kit, oilskin and
respirator. Working parties took the baggage to the
train, while we collected our Pusser’s bag meals and
marched to the Depot Station. No sooner were we
entrained, carriage doors slammed shut, the old green
flag waved, the guard’s whistle blown and we were
off under the same conditions as before, this time to
Liverpool. From the windows of the backs of the houses
adjacent to the railway line towels and handkerchiefs
were waved; here and there we saw a pair of knickers
fluttering and we wondered how many of the wavers were
weeping, or ... ! No stopping at Crewe this time; we were
due to embark on a troopship waiting to join a fast
convoy. Late at night the train arrived at Liverpool and
in the darkness of the black-out we waited in the train
until a cold dawn saw it being unloaded. We claimed our
kit and walked up the gangplank of the Motor Ship Glenearn.
She had been built as a motor-car transport ship but was
now fitted out with mess tables and stools, hammock hooks
and wash places. I expected that we would stay together
as a crew and share a mess, but it was not to be. The
mess-deck C.P.O. called my name and I was put in charge
of a mess of twenty or so very junior ratings from all
branches. They had never been to sea, just a minimum of
boat training, so I had to more or less teach them the
art of living around a mess table.
Seemingly they had lived in a
Butlin’s Holiday Camp when called up for service in
the Navy; they had land-drilled at their respective
branch work, had never dished up or scrubbed out, but had
been waited on hand and foot. When these lambs were
detailed to join the mess they just dropped their kitbags
and hammocks on the deck. Wearing oilskins and with
respirators slung, they huddled close together and looked
so forlorn and frightened that if their mothers could
have seen them they would have stopped the war promptly.
When the mess-deck Chief gave me the mess list of names
he sort of lifted his head in exasperation and said:
"The best of luck, Lofty. I won’t interfere for
a couple of days; they’re all yours."
The first job was to call their names
and check that the bodies belonged to me. Off
respirators, oilskins and caps, place them neatly on the
table, stand up the kitbags, open them, roll up oilskins
neatly, fish overalls from bags, place oilskins and
respirators in bags and stow neatly in our mess kitbag
rack. With me around them like a sheepdog they slowly
began to come alive. I had them stow their hammocks in
the rack and I noticed they had begun to come together in
groups and pairs, which was a good sign; they even began
to talk to one another. Then I told them to take off
their uniforms down to their underwear, put on overalls
and stow their uniforms neatly in the kitbag. Came the
call over the loud-hailer: "Cooks to the
galley." It was time to collect breakfast. Memories
of Butlin’s were still with them and I believe they
were waiting to go along and collect a meal. I told them
what was to happen and took them to the galley to show
the way. This brought back memories of our Training
Division days. I made one of them call out our mess
number loudly and had a couple of them collect our metal
dishes, containing fried bacon, beans and fried tomatoes,
automatically called ‘red lead’. Back to the
mess, out eating irons and plates, sit them at the table
and show them how to serve the food as evenly and fairly
as possible. I had one of them cutting the bread into
fairly thick rounds and let them tuck in. At least they
seemed to be alive because all the plates were clean. I
sent one lad back to the galley with the urn to come back
with hot tea, and by this time I was ready for my cuppa.
Yes, life had come back into them, they began to chatter
away. I took time to look around and mentally weigh them
up. Oh Butlin’s! I believe they would have sat there
forever if I had let them. I took them to the Central
Stores to draw soap, a scrubbing brush and cloths, then
back to the mess to send a lad with a large mess kettle
for hot water. I told them to pair off and together we
washed the dishes and dried them; I told two of them to
take the dish water, find the upper deck and empty it
down the gash shute into the river.
Reader, please pardon me if this
episode appears to be boring, but I must emphasise the
need for these ratings to be as efficient as possible in
living arrangements so that they would immediately fit in
when joining a warship. The next detail was to learn to
scrub clean the mess table and stools; even handling a
scrubbing brush was a work of art. I told the first pair
that after supper they would be cooks of the mess for the
next twenty four hours. Their first day passed in my care
and I shepherded them round the spaces in the ship so
that they would become reasonably familiar when any alarm
rattlers sounded off. After tea and supper, when I had
all of them mucking in, letter writing time came for all
of us and I observed one or two having a quiet weep now
that the novelty of joining a ship had worn off. Slinging
hammocks became the next trial; some of them would have
finished up sleeping in the shape of a letter U, so they
copied my method of slinging the hammock as near
horizontal as possible and then we practised getting in
and out of hammocks. "Pipe down" followed, and
so the first day ended.
.... now out of Liverpool,
through the Bay of Biscay, on south to
Freetown, stopover at Simonstown and then
north up though the Indian Ocean .....
Early next morning the Glenearn
moved out into Liverpool Bay. I took my charges with me
to the various messes where the established ratings were
living to give the youngsters ideas of what was to be
expected of them. Then came the magic day when we were at
sea. This was to be a fast convoy with not many ships,
but there was the usual bodyguard of small warships
around us. By now the youngsters had been taken to form
working parties to keep the ship clean and I was at a
loose end. My responsibility was to keep the mess clean
and the youngsters in order. In a couple of days the
convoy entered the Bay of Biscay, and on this January day
of 1941 the old Bay was kicking up a bit. In a hammock,
bad weather is not so noticeable; the vessel tends to
roll around the hammock. Bad weather is usually noticed
when one stands on the deck. Some fortunate people are
immune to sea-sickness, others are not so lucky. I had my
share of sea-sickness, as future narratives will reveal.
On the particular morning, when entering the Bay of
Biscay there was a discernable roll on the Glenearn.
Whereas my youngsters had rapidly become old sailors in
the past couple of days, that morning saw several of them
become ‘proper poorly’. Reader, if you have
ever suffered from ‘mal de mer’ you
will know all you want to do is to go somewhere and die.
Thus it was with some of these lads. I made the spritely
bodies lash up and stow their hammocks and help those who
only wanted to lie down anywhere. The mess bucket came in
really useful. I apologise for appearing disgusting, but
life is life and this is one of the facts. These
youngsters, so affected, just didn’t want to do
anything and had to be harried into life. Toilet, shave
and wash, then breakfast to be brought from the galley.
"Who said breakfast?" Those who thought they
were dying I sent to the upper deck and warned them about
standing on the lee side of the weather deck. Amongst the
remainder we had an ‘all hands in’ session and
those hungry bods tucked in to all the spare breakfast,
which happened to be grilled kidneys on fried bread.
Together with a round of bread and margarine and a cuppa,
I always relished this dish. By the time we had washed,
dried and stowed the breakfast things, scrubbed the
tables and stools, I noticed one or two of the die-hards
beginning to turn a shade of green, so they had to be
dispatched to the upper deck rapidly. Came the call over
the loud-hailer: "Working parties to muster at your
work places." The Buffer, the senior seaman Chief
P.O. who was in charge of the work parties, came to the
mess deck, wanting to know where all his bodies were.
When told that they could be found on the upper deck he
exclaimed: "That’s why the ship has a list on,
they must all be on the lee-side!" How he managed to
start them working and what they did is beyond me. Not
many of my mess-mates turned up for dinner or tea.
That first day in the Bay of Biscay
reminds me of a poem learned in Bass-Hamlyn’s class.
"There’s a breathless
hush in the close tonight,
Ten to make and the match to win."
There was a breathless hush on the
mess-deck that evening; hammocks were slung very early
and it was soon a case of all quiet on the western front!
By the next morning the convoy had broken the back of the
Bay, the sea was much calmer and the air noticeably
warmer, which made a difference to the youngsters’
attitude to life. They had had their spell of rough
weather, had not died, and now where was breakfast? With
the air temperature rising the customary sailor’s
blue jersey was put away and the rig of the day, when in
uniform and not overalls, was a white shirt, ratings for
the use of. The mess deck Chief gathered together all of
us in charge of messes and we had a discussion about the
dhobeying now that the warmer weather was upon us and
white uniform would be worn more. So we worked out times
in afternoons and evenings to take our youngsters into
the bathrooms and instigate dhobeying sessions with
economical use of fresh water. As the convoy’s first
stop was to be Freetown the ship’s water-making
capacity was crucial and one learned not to use it with
gay abandon. Being on draft for foreign service meant
that everyone was issued with a large white-covered cork
helmet, called a ‘topi’, together with white
tropical shirts, two in number and white shorts,
tropical, two pairs. To support the shorts one was issued
with a white belt and, just as in the Training Division,
the wooden name stamp was used on every piece of the new
uniform. Together with this extra kit were two pairs of
navy blue stockings. So when dressed to kill, a rating
was in white from his head to his knees and in blue
stockings and black boots.
Now, the topis were the bane of our
lives, kept in white linen bags and too large to stow
into any kit bag or locker, kept clean by the application
of Blanco, a block of white powder. A moistened sponge
was rubbed on the block of Blanco and the resultant paste
was applied to the topi. You can get an idea of what a
topi was when you see a Royal Marine Bandsman in his
dress uniform. To be on the upper deck between sunrise
and sunset without a topi was an offence contrary to Good
Order and Naval Discipline and one would be charged with
laying oneself open to a self-inflicted injury, namely
sunstroke. "And he calling no-one on his
behalf!" One day on Daily Orders came a notice that
the wearing of topis was no longer to be part of the rig
of the day and it was no longer a part of a rating’s
kit. There were yells of delight throughout the ship and
several idiots - I was one of them - kicked our topis
over the side. At least the linen bag came in handy for
stowing parts of our white uniform. The next morning on
the Daily Orders was another notice. Topis, no longer
part of uniform, would be handed in to the Naval Store
Officer during the dog watches; failure to do so would
result in a fine of thirty-five shillings. To me that was
a fortnight’s pay. What the Admiralty was going to
do with those thousands and thousands of topis makes the
mind boggle. Somebody must have been made an Admiral for
coming up with that bright idea.
I can’t remember whether that
amount was stopped from my pay. You may recall my account
of a normal pay parade where the Chief Writer would call
out the amount to be paid and the Supply Officer would
pour out the contents of the envelope. Sometimes it
transpired that through some negligence one would not be
entitled to any pay and the Chief Writer would call out:
"Not entitled, sir!" So the hopeful would walk
away with nothing in his cap. On the mess deck this was
known as the North Easter - as you can see the initials
of the phrase are N.E. This aroused a lot of sympathy
from the mess members and there was always the offer of a
couple of bob until next pay-day. To my knowledge this
sympathetic offer was never abused.
Eventually the convoy arrived at
Freetown in Sierra Leone on the West Coast of Africa and
the Glenearn anchored outside the harbour.
Immediately, or so it seemed, the sea around the ship was
covered with dugout canoes, propelled by natives. Dressed
in the minimum coverage, each of them was an excellent
swimmer and from the dugouts came the cries for a
‘Glasgow tanner’, a small silver threepence
piece Throw a silver threepence piece, also known as a
threepenny bit, over the ship’s side and the natives
would dive out of the dug-outs and swim down until one
would come up with the coin in his mouth. Then, once
more, would come the call for a ‘Glasgow
tanner’. Then came the dodge to wrap a farthing in
silver paper, show it to the waiting hopefuls and throw
it over the side. When retrieved and examined there would
be howls of insults in the local language, usually ending
up with: "You are not a very good man, sir."
They soon realised that all the silver coins had been
expended - seemingly they had no use for farthings - and
left us. There were a number of ships in the convoy still
to be visited.
The next attraction was a large number
of dug-outs loaded with large stalks of bananas. The
requirement this time was clothing or material for making
clothing. Under no circumstances were the natives
permitted to come aboard, so a barter system was
organised where something was lowered at the end of a
rope to a dug-out, the something examined, accepted, and
a satisfactorily-sized stalk of bananas tied to the rope
to be hauled up in exchange. Pretty soon exchanges were
rapid and stalks of bananas coming up almost made the
side of the ship look yellow. One of my lads came to me
with a striped pyjama coat and when we showed this to one
of the Johnnys (they were all answering to the name of
John), he literally jumped up and down in his eagerness
to accept. So the coat was tied and lowered into a
dug-out almost overflowing with clothing. A large stalk
of bananas was tied on in exchange and the lad eagerly
hauled it up. The lad had to manhandle the large stalk
over the waist-high gunwhale of the ship; as he was doing
this, a large, black spider came out of the bananas and
landed on the back of his hand. What did he do? Well, he
let out a frightful yell and let go the stalk of bananas,
which promptly dropped back like a bomb. Down it went,
falling into the loaded dug-out and through the bottom of
the craft. We saw the clothing floating away from the
sinking boat and the two crew swimming, trying to rescue
their goods. No clothing, no bananas.
By then the mess-decks were overflowing
with stalks of bananas. Whereas a few days ago there was
not a banana to be seen, now we didn’t know what to
do with them. There were fried bananas from the galley,
bananas in custard from the galley, banana sandwiches
when one felt peckish and a: "Help yourself to one
of my bananas," when passing another mess. Our
bodies must have been overflowing with potassium for many
days. And at one of the ship’s concerts, (the Naval
handle was a ‘sod’s opera’), an old song
entitled "I’ve Never Seen a Straight
Banana" was revived.
The convoy crossed the Equator and this
was a disappointment to me. On Naval warships especially,
crossing the Equator was always celebrated with a
"Crossing The Line" ceremony, when the ship was
stopped on the line and King Neptune, together with his
court, came aboard to search out all those crossing for
the first time. Those unfortunates were roughly shaved
and roughly handled, but at the end of the proceedings
each of the victims was presented with a certificate to
vouch that he had been ‘done’. This was a
valuable piece of property, freeing the owner from any
participation in future ceremonies and something to show
when talking to old ‘salts’. I crossed the line
twice in that convoy, but wartime restrictions cancelled
the ceremonies; one couldn’t expect the convoy to
stop - the Jerry submarine commanders would have had a
field-day! Such was Naval routine that, with hundreds of
Crossing The Line certificates being lost in sinking
ships, when a warship crossed the line afetr the war and
the ceremony was carried out, those one-time holders who
could not produce a certificate, despite all protests,
were rounded up by King Neptune’s courtiers and
religiously done again. King Neptune spared nobody:
captains of ships and officers were included if they
could not show the necessary certificate. I have a
"Blue Nose Certificate" to show that I have
served north of the Arctic Circle when I was in the
H.M.S. Eagle, but have never possessed one of
the coveted Neptune’s certificates. It was worth
possessing, a highly decorated affair, filled with
"heretofores" and "wheretofores" in
coloured inks, ship’s stamps all over it and dated
and signed by King Neptune. From various yarns about
crossing the line it appears that excited courtiers have
caused some awkward moments when rounding up victims with
the aid of Neptune’s trident. Officers beware! and
Jaunties!
When south of the Equator we were often
convoyed in turn by porpoises and flying fish. The
porpoises could easily keep up with the Glenearn
and seemed to play a game of chance by swimming across
the bows of the ships; the flying fish would leap out of
the water and, by spreading their wide fins, glide in the
air for several yards. The next stop for the convoy was
Cape Town, and from a long way off Table Mountain was
visible. The Glenearn berthed alongside one of
the jetties, so shore leave meant we could just walk down
the gangway to be on land, instead of waiting for a
liberty boat. What a welcome we received there! As each
person stepped off the gangway he was given a large brown
paper bag filled with various kinds of fruit and sticking
out from the top of each bag was a pineapple. Families
were waiting with their cars to pick up one or two
service men, to whisk them off to see Cape Town and take
them home for home comforts. Together with two other
ratings I went in a car with the family of the manager of
a car tyre factory; I think it could have been Dunlop,
but that doesn’t matter. We were taken through Cape
Town and visited the top of Table Mountain. Back with the
family to their house to enjoy a lovely evening; nothing
was too much trouble, then back to the ship, the bag of
fruit not forgotten.
Just like the episode with the bananas,
there were now bags of fruit everywhere. I gathered my
mess-mates and rolled down the oil-cloth table covering.
Together we sorted out the collection of apples, plums,
peaches, grapes and pineapples. A problem arose as to how
to peel a pineapple until somebody remembered tins of
pineapple rings, so the problem then was what to use for
slicing them. All we had were table knives and a
seaman’s jack-knife was not much use. Now among my
collection of lads were some bright bodies, waiting to go
to university, until their call-ups came. I threw the
problem to all of them and whilst pondering and "pr
squaring" amongst themselves, one of them returned
with a butcher’s saw which he had
‘borrowed’ from the galley. Have you ever tried
sawing through a pineapple? What a ham-fisted shower we
were - me just as awkward as the others! Obviously doing
this on an oil-cloth wasn’t the answer, so we rolled
it back and rested the fruit on the table to perform the
operation. Upon sawing there was juice everywhere, but
finally rings were obtained and skinned so that everyone
had his share. Then a good scrub-out took place and the
clean saw craftily returned to the galley. Believe it or
not, on the next day’s Daily Orders there were
instructions on how to cut open pineapples, but no
mention of what sort of blade to use. We stuck to the
butcher’s saw! What a sticky mess those operations
made.
Before the war, service in the Southern
Atlantic was considered not too bad and visits to
Simonstown, the Naval Dockyard, were often talked about
by the old ‘salts’ who had seen service there.
So one afternoon I travelled to Simonstown, or
‘Snookie’ as it was known in the Navy, just to
be able to say I had been there. To me there was not very
much in evidence to stir the blood. I did see something
which was distressing: that was the way the members of
the Police Force seemed to think that they were so
superior to everyone else. I had gone into a pub for a
cooling beer and, when talking with the landlord,
discovered that he had come from Chesterfield and -
surprise, surprise, he had grown up knowing a family of
Siddalls. We had a long chat and several beers; he so
wanted to know what he had missed in ‘the old
country’, as he called it. I then steered the
conversation around to the subject of the police. He told
me not to make trouble of any sort, not to fraternise
with the coloured people when they were around and, above
all, not to appear under the influence of liquor on the
streets, as it let down the white people in front of the
coloureds, which was a serious crime. I still have a
picture in my mind of those big policemen, well tanned,
in khaki drill uniforms, wearing what seemed to be very
short shorts, with the odd one carrying a sjambock. From
the way they eyed us up and down, I don’t think they
liked us service men very much.
Some days and a lot of fruit later the
convoy sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and North once
again towards the Equator. Just a few weeks before we
were in that vicinity a German raider had traded fire
with one of our warships, so as a result we had frequent
action stations routines and there was a scare that the
raider was just below the horizon, waiting to pounce. I
must mention that life on any ship in the Navy is kept at
blood heat by ‘buzzes’- yarns which emanate
from nowhere and anywhere. Usually the sources are
wardroom stewards who heard the Commander tell Jimmy the
One, or there must be leave coming up because the skipper
wants his brown shoes cleaned. And so life at sea
revolves around buzzes with a: "Have you heard the
latest?" So it was nothing new when some had seen
the flashes of gunfire over the horizon and we were off
to pick up survivors. Just another buzz; we crossed the
Equator once again, with no ceremony and no certificate.
